I only run a handful of add-ons in WoW, and fully four of those were written by Gazmik Fizzwidget. So when he told me that he’s working on a new version of Hunter’s Helper for patch 2.4, I was really excited to try it out. And when he told me he could use some help beta testing it, I immediately volunteered my readers. *grin*
I woke up this morning to a Blue Screen of Death and the smell of ozone. And things just got worse from there.
Twelve hours, three chkdsks, one power supply, two video cards, three sticks of RAM and three failed XP reinstalls later, my main computer is still totally inoperable. (Thankfully, we didn’t have to buy any of those parts except the power supply.) I’ve ordered a new bare-bones machine, but it’s won’t be here for at least a week.
In the meantime, I have the laptop. It’s not my favorite machine for either playing or typing long passages, but I guess I’ll get used to it. I may be even more laconic for the next week or two, though.
(Fortunately, my most important files, including all of Petopia and my recent contract work, are all safely stored in Perforce. I lost a couple of days of Petopia changes I was working on, but no more than that. And I handle e-mail through GMail so I’m fine there … Well, except for the calendar in Outlook, and I’m sure the dentist will call me at some point before my next appointment.)
I’ve continued playing my dwarven lass Kaet as much as I can between tasks over the past few weeks, and slowly but surely she’s continued to progress. Then somehow, suddenly, I realized today that she’s level 60!
There have been some setbacks over the past 10 levels, to be sure. The saddest is that I have given up one of my three lovely crabs. At level 56 I decided that I could no longer do without upgrades to Claw, so I released Niffis (the white crab) back into the wild.
I realized yesterday when I was working with the Petopia pet database that I have contradictory notes on some of the Karazhan beasts. Since I’m not able to go in there myself to check, I was hoping that perhaps some of you might know — or be able to check for me.
Elunare, a Night Elf hunter from the server Bloodfeather (EU), wrote to me recently in the hopes that we could help her find a name for her white tiger.
RFC stands for Request For Comments, and that’s exactly what this post is. I want to get your comments on hunter pets for the Arena.
I was extremely impressed with the great information I learned in our last RFC thread, RFC: Raiding Pets, and I’d like to pick your brains again — this time for the Arena. With the advent of the Tournament Test Realm (TTR), there has been a lot of renewed focus on hunters in the Arena, and I freely admit that I know nothing useful about this!
As you may know, Blizzard is planning a 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament in which players can win real money (and lots of it) by beating other players in 3×3 Arena matches. These matches will be played out on special Tournament realms with special pre-made level 70 characters. All the tournament characters have access to the same equipment — which in the case of hunters, includes pets.
If you’ve ever e-mailed me, you probably know that I am not the fastest person to respond to a message. It often takes me days, sometimes even weeks, to get back to everyone who has written me. It’s awful.
Unfortunately, the problem is not that I am lazy or that I procrastinate — unfortunate because those (theoretically) can be fixed — but that I get too much e-mail to answer it all on a daily basis. It doesn’t help that from day to day I don’t know whether I am going to have 12 yawning deliriously free hours to play and work on Petopia and respond to e-mail and comments, or 30 minutes to eat half a grilled cheese over my keyboard while working on some urgent contract or other.
I love the fact that people e-mail me. I do my best to respond in a timely fashion, but … I know that I often fail. So I’ve added a warning to the Contact page here and to the About page on Petopia letting everyone know that I fail. That way, at least you are forewarned. *grin*
Seriously, I will read every e-mail (and comment!) that I get. And I will do my best to respond. But I may not always be able to.
Recently I received this well-written request for help from Equiroa, a Blood Elf hunter on an unnamed PvP server.
I fell in love with my first hunter in WoW years ago. I’m a very pet-centric hunter, loving BM spec and expecting my pet to pull more than his (or her) fair share. I’m not a role player, but I do gain an attachment to my pets on my hunters that doesn’t happen with my warlocks and their minions. And so I care greatly about the names I give my pets.
I spent some time today on the Tournament Test Realm, which was … interesting, to say the least. You make a character like normal, but when you log in the character is level 70 with some very basic equipment (like Primal Mooncloth bags, a mount, and 5000 gold). You buy your weapons and armor and gems and enchantments and whatnot from vendors (which takes an awful lot of time because they are all lagging like crazy), and if you run short of cash you can go to the Paymaster NPC to get more.
Then, assuming you are a hunter, you go to the Beastmaster NPC and pick out a pet. The Beastmaster stocks 15 pet families (out of 23), and when you choose one a happy level 70 loyalty 6 pet of that family appears next to you. There is no choice in terms of looks, but you can teach your pet whatever skills you like — all hunters automatically know the top rank of all the pet skills.
